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BELİET-810 • 104 explanation of all this is that the then canonical authors adopted the popular lingam worship of Saiva School in order to represent Mt. Meru as a symbol of the eternal potency of Jainism. These regions are thus placed above the profane lower world.(5)
These texts in the Bh. above belong to the final canonical stage, when the Jaina centered world view was thoroughly established. Their description of Tamaskāya and Krsnarāji presupposes that the Jaina loka was assumed in a profile of Cosmic Man. Then, the trasa nāļi or a tunnel running vertically through the center of the loka, must be suggesting itself to be the cosmic axis of the Jainas.
The structures of the three worlds and the four types of beings residing therein are described in the T.S. III-IV. Umāsvāti must have used the so called Pannatti texts for his source materials in composing these chapters. From the data offered so far above, it is very clear that the shape, size and structure of the Jaina loka had been already established by Umāsvāti's time. Therefore, the Jaina theoreticians in the later canonical stages including Umāsvāti were fully aware that the shape of their universe was made to resemble Cosmic Man. But curiously enough, they didn't dare to refer to this fact. It is likewise strenge that the post-Umāsvāti authors like Haribhadra, Pūjayapāda and Akalanka maintained the same attitude of keeping silence about this matter. It just went on, as if handing down a secret inside to the succeeding Jaina theoreticians, untill the modern authors broke with its taboo. But, why?
The Bh. XIII. 4.478-479 refer to the directions starting from the central point in the middle world, which is situated in the middle of two thin layers at the top of Ratnaprabhā. This theory of directions must have evolved in the final canonical stage, in connectinon with locating the central point
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